With networks such as the Internet gaining tremendous popularity, and with the vast multitude of pages and/or other documents and/or other media content becoming available to users via the World Wide Web (web), it has become desirable to provide efficient and streamlined approaches to searching for information desired by a user. Search systems and processes have been developed to meet the needs of users to obtain the desired information. Search engines, such as, for example, those provided over the web by Yahoo!, Google, and other web sites may be used by individuals to gather information. Typically, a user may input a query term and/or phrase and the search engine may return one or more links to sites and/or documents related to the query. The links returned may be very related, or they may be completely unrelated, to what the user was actually looking for. The “relatedness” of results to the query may be in part a function of the actual query entered as well as the robustness of the search system (underlying collection system) used.
Other techniques for allowing a user to specify desired information have been developed. For one example, in some or most news stories found at the Yahoo! News web site, various words may be highlighted in some fashion (underlined, for example) to indicate that the highlighted words represent keywords. The keywords may be selected by the user (by clicking on the keyword, for example) and additional information and/or documentation and/or links may be provided by a search engine or by some other agent. In this manner, the keywords may help the user to gather additional information and to dig deeper into the subjects that the user desires to learn more about. For example, if a user is reading a news story and desires more information on a topic, the user may select a keyword. A new box or window may open to provide the user with links to various other sources of information on the topic. The various sources of information may include, for example, related news stories, web sites, news photos, etc., that may add context to the topic. Difficulties with this approach to allowing a user to specify desired information may include, for example, challenges in determining which words of a news story might be of interest to a user.
Reference is made in the following detailed description to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, wherein like numerals may designate like parts throughout to indicate corresponding or analogous elements. It will be appreciated that for simplicity and/or clarity of illustration, elements illustrated in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and/or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of claimed subject matter. It should also be noted that directions and references, for example, up, down, top, bottom, and so on, may be used to facilitate the discussion of the drawings and are not intended to restrict the application of claimed subject matter. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense and the scope of claimed subject matter defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.